On Saturday, Michigan State football avenged their loss to Boston College last season, prevailing 42-40 in double overtime. The main difference for the Spartans this year was a mix of a potent run game with giving quarterback Aidan Chiles enough time in the pocket. One of the Spartans helping the quarterback get that time was tackle Conner Moore.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Moore spoke to the media, discussing his own improvements, alongside what this team gives. Moore is happy with his improvement in pass protection on the right side of the ball, a foreign position to him until transferring to Michigan State this winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a lot more comfortable with pass protection on the right side,\u201d Moore said. \u201cIt was kind of tough when I first came here, trying to move over there. I still have a lot of room for improvement in pass protection on both the left side and right side, I\u2019m still struggling on some stuff. There\u2019s lots of room for improvement there.\u201d<\/p>\n
He expanded on his room for improvement, critiquing almost every element of his own protection, saying he still has a lot to learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to stay square in my set, I need to have a better punch, I need to move my feet better, it\u2019s just everything,\u201d Moore admitted. \u201cEspecially in pass protection, you\u2019re never good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the storylines around the Spartans in the early season has been the offensive line rotation. Moore went an called it a fun challenge, saying he likes it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of like playing both sides, it\u2019s been a fun challenge,\u201d Moore said. \u201cI\u2019ve liked it so far, I feel like I haven\u2019t had many problems with it so far.\u201d<\/p>\n
The junior tackle also downplayed the switching of sides. That said, he did agree it is hard to establish a rhythm flipping sides.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re playing offensive line at the end of the day,\u201d Moore pointed out. \u201cA wide man is a wide man, a pass set is a pass set regardless of what side you\u2019re on you\u2019re still doing the same thing. Obviously, it sucks, having to go back and forth, you can\u2019t get a rhythm that way. It\u2019s still the same thing at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
One thing Moore complimented about this team is the defense and offense both standing out during games one and two, respectively. That said, they are awaiting a complete \u201cteam game,\u201d and the tackle is firm in his belief that the team will be scary when that happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we\u2019ve done a good job as a team,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThe first game was more defense, this game was more offense, when we put a whole game together, it\u2019s going to be scary.\u201d<\/p>\n
One thing that has remained consistent during Moore\u2019s first two games has been the energy from Spartan Stadium, and the lineman was extremely complimentary of the atmosphere against Boston College.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my god, it was sweet, it was packed out,\u201d Moore complimented. \u201cIt was loud all the way until the fourth quarter. It was cool. It was a pretty cool atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
While next week is Youngstown State, an opponent hailing from the lower FCS division of football, Moore is not overlooking the squad. After all, he starred at the lower level before his move to East Lansing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a lot of respect for the FCS level, obviously playing there,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of good players at that level, a lot of good teams. Having that respect for everybody is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n
This season, the Michigan State football run game looks vastly improved from last year. In part, it comes from sophomore back Makhi Frazier providing a dynamic element to the offense. Moore had quite a few compliments for the Texas native on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a heck of a running back,\u201d Moore praised Frazier. \u201cHe runs hard, physical, he\u2019s quick, he makes guys miss. It\u2019s a fun time blocking for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The big element, however, has been the improvement in run blocking. However, Moore has lamented that a few big runs could have been true house calls from beyond midfield with a few tweaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done a really good job up front,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of room for improvement. We\u2019ve had a lot of good runs, we\u2019ve been really close on a lot of runs that could bust for 50, 60 yards. So, I feel like we can have a lot of improvement there still.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Plenty to learn from so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":21899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[859,59,191,189,504],"class_list":["post-21895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-conner-moore","tag-featured","tag-michigan-state-football","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}